DENMARK IS seeking to salvage next month’s Copenhagen climate summit amid clear indications – even from the Danes themselves – that it is doomed to conclude with nothing more than a “political agreement”.
Dashing hopes of the “Seal the Deal” campaign, Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has conceded that the 15th UN climate change conference – now barely more than 20 days away – will not produce a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
Instead, he has proposed that a legally binding treaty should be concluded by the end of next year, at the 16th conference in Mexico, with an intermediate round of negotiations in Bonn, headquarters of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
In Singapore on Sunday, following a surprise appearance by Mr Rasmussen at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co- operation (Apec) summit, US president Barack Obama supported the proposal, cautioning that the “perfect [should not] be the enemy of the good”.
The Danish deferral plan is also being studied by China, whose president, Hu Jintao, was in Singapore for the Apec meeting. He will be holding further talks with Mr Obama during the US president’s current visit to China.
The Chinese foreign ministry said yesterday that whatever deal was made in Copenhagen should “consolidate and expand the consensus and progress already made in negotiations concerning mitigation, adaptation, funding, technology transfer and other aspects”.
Denmark’s climate and energy minister Connie Hedegaard said countries could still agree on these key elements and set a clear deadline for concluding a treaty. “Maybe a realistic deadline would be Mexico but it depends on how far parties go on crunch issues,” she added.
Ms Hedegaard was hosting a meeting of some 40 environment ministers in Copenhagen, called by Denmark, to see what could be salvaged from next month’s summit.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley did not attend, a spokesman said yesterday.
He added, however, that Mr Gormley would attend a special EU Environment Council meeting in Brussels next Monday, called by the Swedish presidency, with a view to hammering out a strong line that would give Europe a leadership role in Copenhagen.
Greenpeace, meanwhile, has called on the EU to challenge the “so-called deal” made in Singapore by Mr Rasmussen with Mr Obama and, instead, to “work on achieving a successful, legally binding outcome that would stop climate chaos”.
In Rome, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon told a UN food summit that a deal was crucial to combating global hunger.
“Next month in Copenhagen, we need a comprehensive agreement that will provide a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty on climate change.”
Developing countries insisted that a binding treaty was still possible next month, even though Mr Obama and most other leaders reckon it has slipped out of reach – not least because the US Senate is highly unlikely to pass carbon-capping laws by December.
”We believe that an internationally legally binding agreement is still possible,” Michael Church, environment minister of Grenada and current chairman of the 42-nation Alliance of Small Island States told Reuters. These states see themselves as the most vulnerable.
Sudan’s UN ambassador, Stanislaus Lumumba, who chairs the G77 group of 130 developing countries and has been a central figure in the climate talks, said they were “not moving away” from their belief that a full treaty – based on Kyoto – was still possible in Copenhagen.